“Just…come home with me.” Fear crawled along my skin, my gaze darting around, hating that I had to be afraid.

Avril stared back at me where we were tucked up close and hidden in the shadows against the side of a building. Far too close for comfort to the depravity she’d pulled me into three weeks ago. I had to be an idiot I was there again.

Her eyes were the exact color and shape of mine. But hers…they were drawn and sunken. Vacant. A vast emptiness haunted by ghosts and horrors that I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

Uneasily, she shifted her feet, her voice dropping low like she was terrified anyone else might hear her confession. “You know I can’t do that.”

Grief gripped every cell in my body. “That man…I don’t know who he is…but he’s…dangerous. Don’t you know what he was going to do to me?”

I reached out and took her by the wrist, tugging at her and praying there was a chance the physical connection might draw her closer to me. “I know you’re scared, but I’ll help you. Protect you.”

Her laughter was sad. “You know better than that.” She pulled free of my hold, her body twitching with anxiety as she glanced over her shoulder before she turned back to me. “I really need to go.”

“Avril—”

She shook her head, cutting me off.

“I love you,” I whispered. My last reserve. What could I do when she’d left me with nothing left to say?

A brittle smile wavered on her lips. “I know you do.”

Sorrow bottled in my throat, and I found myself nodding at the same second I was digging in my pocket.

A fool. That was what I was. Because I handed her a wad of cash where we were partially obscured by the building.

Somewhere inside, I knew it was my own fault. I’d trained her that if she called, I’d come running. Without question or reason. Knowing she was only going to trample my heart all over again.

Because when she reached out a shaky hand and clutched the money in a desperate fist, I knew where it would be spent. But how could I ignore her cries when she begged that she was hungry? That she had no place to sleep?

Almost frantically, she stuffed it in her front pocket and began to back away.

A pained panic slammed me from all sides, and I took a surging step forward, my voice a plea. “Avril.”

“Thank you,” she whispered before she turned her back and started walking away from me.

I took a lurching step forward, overcome with the impulse to chase her. “Avril…please.”

She rounded the corner before I could stop her. She never even stopped to look back.

Defeated, I slumped forward, fighting the tears in my eyes and the unbearable ache in my chest. That place that throbbed and moaned every time she walked away and took another piece of me.

I dropped my head, sucking in breaths as I tried to get it together. It seemed the only tough love in this situation were the brutal blows Avril dealt me at every turn.

Straightening, I inhaled toward the sky, needing the sun on my face, the reminder that there were so many beautiful things in this world in the midst of all the ugly and depraved.

Then I froze, awareness shivering through the air, chills prickling across my flesh. I swore I felt my axis tilt, bending and bending and bending until my direction had been altered.

Sucking in a breath, I peeked over my shoulder. My heart trembled and shook.

Staring back at me were brilliant brown eyes that raged and stormed and promised they were getting ready to wreak a new kind of havoc on my life.

On the opposite side of the street, he pushed from the wall where he’d been watching. He didn’t hesitate. He came straight for me. His gaze only broke from mine to dart back and forth at the small street before he began to cross it in long, purposed strides.

A frenzy lit. A quiver of attraction that rocked and provoked.

I was fixed to the spot, gaze enraptured as I watched the intricate ink dance and play over the corded muscles that bunched and flexed in his thick arms. So much strength in his body and so much beauty in his being.

I swore he stole the air when he stopped two feet away. Hands fisted, he glowered over me.

I stumbled my way through the choppy words. “What…what are you doing here?”

His were hard. “Think I could ask you the same question.”

I shook myself out of the stupor. “Are you following me?”

It came off as an accusation that was somehow half-pleased and half-offended.

Standing in front of me was a man who was little more than a stranger, who had been tracking me, and I couldn’t stop the excitement that thrilled in my bones. I couldn’t stop the comfort that washed through me at his concern.

But I knew it was even more than that.

Over the last three weeks, I’d spent too much time wondering if I’d ever see this beautiful boy again.

He’d come to my house, and I thought we’d formed some sort of connection, even stronger than the one we’d forged that night.

And then he was just…gone. But not before he’d confessed that he couldn’t stand the idea of something bad happening to me.

So, I’d given into the fantasies.

Remembering the way his hand had burned through me like bliss when he’d simply grasped my leg as he’d sat on my couch staring at me. The way his hungry gaze had dipped and roamed, and I was sure he’d been thinking the same thing I was.

Wondering what it might be like if he were pressing me into the couch.

Bodies tangled.

The sad thing was those fantasies had also filled me with a bolt of insecurity. Again, it was something so unlike me. Because I didn’t want any man who didn’t appreciate what I had to give.

But this boy was a rock god. A legend shrouded by his own brand of mystery. The kind of boy I didn’t have the first clue how to handle.

I knew he could reach out and have his pick of just about any woman. I knew I wanted him to pick me.

“Maybe.” Frustration laced his tone. At him or me, I couldn’t tell.

I blinked at him, tongue-tied, my confusion and surprise tumbling out. “That’s just…weird.”

God. I was brilliant.

But what was I supposed to say? This boy caught me unaware at every turn, always at the advantage.

He almost laughed, this sound that was exasperated and filled with disbelief. “Weird?”

I bit at my lip, fighting a smile that really shouldn’t have been there. But he was here, again finding me when I felt helpless and vulnerable.

I nodded emphatically, clutching the lightness that whispered through the air. “That’s right. Weird.”

With his index finger, he scratched at the back of his head. He chuckled low, this sound that rumbled through my senses and warmed my belly. “I’m sure there are plenty of other things we could call this other than weird, don’t you think? This is just…”

I frowned when he trailed off and took a step in his direction. “What?”

Helplessly, he looked back at me. “I can’t do this, Alexis. I’ve got a shit show getting ready to blow up in my life, and the only thing I can think about right now is you. Can’t go to sleep at night because I’m fucking terrified you might be sneaking off and doing something that’s going to land you in trouble again. That I might not be there to save you next time. And when I do finally nod off? I wake up in the morning panicked, praying you’re okay and having no way to make sure.”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips. My gaze followed, entranced by the thick bob of his throat as he swallowed.

“I don’t have the first clue what you’ve done to me, but I’m not sure I can handle whatever it is I’m feeling.”

A knot twisted in my chest. A mess of affection and remorse and gratitude. “I hate that I make you worry.”

His expression hardened. He glared over my shoulder as if he wanted to destroy the street that had suddenly become his worst enemy. “Obviously, I wasn’t worrying for nothing, was I?”

I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth. “I told you…she’s my sister. I can’t just cut that tie. And I didn’t go back there. I made her meet me here. Where it’s safe.”

Frustration blew from between his lips, a big hand tugging at the long part of his hair as he looked around. “Where it’s safe? This isn’t safe, Alexis.”

I shook my head at him. “I don’t exactly live in Beverly Hills, either.”

He rubbed his strong chin. “You know that’s different. Your place is…good,” he seemed to settle on.

My heart fluttered at his words. At the way he said it with this shot of affection. “Thank you for caring about me. For worrying. And I know I unwittingly dragged you into the middle of it, and I’m sorry I did, even though I can’t express how thankful I am that you did what you did.”

I blinked hard. “But you can’t come into my life and tell me to give up on my sister.”

He rubbed his face with both palms then dropped them just as fast. “God, I know that. But this makes me crazy, you coming back down here after what happened.”

“I promise, I’m trying to be careful. I just…”

I bit my lip and looked into the distance, gathering my thoughts before I looked back at him. Completely honest. “I need to get her out of there, Zee. Make her see there’s more to life than the one she’s been living. It kills me that she’s wasting it.”

He blew out a strained breath, looking to the ground. “I get it, Alexis. You and I are more alike than I think you know.”

I wanted to stop him, to ask him, to find out why those brown eyes that glimmered and glinted with bronze were suddenly dimmed with grief and regret.

Instead, he distracted me with the expression on his face, this boy so beautiful when he smiled. “This is crazy, you know that?”

“What?”

He gestured between us. “This. Us. Me following you down here when I don’t have the right. That is some seriously unhealthy shit.”

Would it be wrong to tell him how much I liked it? To admit it pulsed a warmth through my veins I hadn’t felt in a long, long time? Maybe in forever.

Because he felt different. So different from all the men of this city who were always after one thing.

And there I was again, wondering if there was more to this than just a warped sense of obligation. More than just the burden I’d placed on his shoulders that night when I’d inadvertently sucked him into the most destructive part of my life.

The part that threatened to be my ruin.

He looked over at me. Sincerely. “I would never hurt you. You know that, right? Following you…”

My older sister Chelsey had always accused me of having zero self-preservation. She always teased that I rushed into every situation heart first, my brain nowhere to be found.

Maybe she was right.

I cocked my head and took a chance. “Are you hungry?”

Surprise widened his eyes, and he massaged the back of his neck, big arm bulging as he did. “God, Alexis, you are more than I know what to do with. I’m the freak who just followed you five miles on foot like some kind of fucked-up stalker, and you’re asking me if I’m hungry?”

“I already told you trust is earned in a lot of different ways.”

Something heavy moved through his features, and somehow I knew he was warring with something unseen.

Then he smiled. A smile that flooded through me, filling up my spirit. “You’re insane.”

My lips curved, heat touching my cheeks. “No fear. Just life.”